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Refugees have rights - Questions & Answers

Children outside the old shoe factory in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Who is a refugee?

More than 140 governments have now signed the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention). This Convention includes an internationally agreed definition of who is a refugee. A refugee is a person who is outside her country of origin and genuinely risks serious human rights abuses because of who she is or what she believes. She cannot or will not return because her government cannot or will not protect her.

Because of the persecution she would face, a refugee is entitled to be protected against forcible return to her country of origin.

Even if she is not a refugee, Amnesty International (AI) would also oppose the forcible return of anyone to a country where she can reasonably be expected to be in danger of torture, execution or “disappearance”. Likewise, AI opposes return to a country where a person faces the death penalty.

What are her rights?

Like anyone else, refugees have human rights. They also have rights because they are refugees. These rights include:

  • Protection against discrimination
  • Freedom of religion
  • Identity and travel documents
  • Work rights
  • Housing, education and relief
  • Protection against penalties for illegal entry
  • Freedom of movement
Refugees should have access to a durable solution, which may be local integration in her country of asylum, resettlement to another country, or voluntary repatriation to her country of origin. Voluntary return should be safe and dignified and with full respect for human rights because history has shown that if a situation in a country is not stable, this will lead to people being forced to leave their homes again.

Who is an asylum seeker?

An asylum-seeker is a person who is seeking protection as a refugee even though she may not have been formally recognised as one. It normally applies to a person who is still waiting for the government to decide whether she is a refugee. The lack of a formal recognition does not make her any less entitled to protection of international refugee law.

To ensure that refugees are able to access their rights, AI works to ensure that asylum-seekers
  • are not prohibited from entering a country to seek asylum;
  • have access to fair procedures for determining whether they are refugees;
  • are not detained (unless they have been charged with a recognizably criminal offence);
  • can contact family, friends, lawyers, interpreters and organisations that can help them (UN High Commissioner for Refugees - UNHCR);
  • have access to basic economic, social and cultural rights, for example work, education, and social assistance.
Do asylum seekers have rights?

Yes - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sets out everyone’s basic human rights. Article 14 (1) says that “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”.

Because they may in fact be refugees, asylum-seekers should enjoy the same rights as refugees unless they are found not to be refugees. They therefore have rights under the Refugee Convention.

AI does not oppose return of rejected asylum seekers if they have had access to a fair and satisfactory asylum procedure and their return can take place in safety, dignity and with full respect for human rights.
[link to Afghan Returns reports]

Who is a migrant?

A migrant is simply a person who moves from one place to another. They may be forced to leave because they are afraid, starving, or desperate for the safety and security of their family. They may move voluntarily. They may leave for a whole mixture of reasons.

Do migrants have rights?

Yes - Migrants are human beings, so they have human rights like the right to life, to freedom from arbitrary detention, freedom from torture, and to an adequate standard of living. There are some international legal standards which are specific to the rights of migrant workers, like Conventions of the International Labour Organization. AI welcomes that the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families entered into force on 1 July 2003. This is an important recognition that migrants’ rights must also be respected and protected.

Who is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP)?

An internally displaced person is a person who has had to flee one part of a country to another. The main difference between an IDP and a refugee is that a refugee has crossed an international border. Like refugees, IDPs leave because of problems like war, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution, or famine. Sometimes IDPs go on to ask for refugee status in another country because they could not find safety in their own.

Do internally displaced persons have rights?

Yes - Internally displaced persons are human beings, so they have human rights. Although their government is obliged to protect their human rights, one of the problems that IDPs have is that their government cannot or will not protect them. To make it clear that IDPs have rights, and to remind governments of their obligations to protect IDPs, the UN developed Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Although they are not binding in the same way that a treaty is, they draw on human rights law, humanitarian law (the law of war), and refugee law.

Facts and figures

Current estimates are that there are 175 million migrants in the world, which is roughly 2.8% of the world’s population, currently estimated to be 6.3 billion. There is an estimated 10.6 million refugees in the world, or roughly 0.17% of the world’s population. And numbers of internally displaced persons are currently estimated to be around 25.8 million, 0.4% of the world’s population.

The majority of refugees and IDPs are in Asia and Africa, which between them host a total of 9.2 million refugees and 18.1 million IDPs.

What does Amnesty International do to protect the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers, migrants and IDPs?

AI does research and advocacy for the protection and promotion of the human rights of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and IDPs. We work towards securing their fundamental rights and to improving and maintaining the quality of protection of people who are entitled to it. We do this by exposing human rights abuses and protection failures, advocating policy and legal changes, and sometimes through taking action on individual cases or issues.

AI has a global network of Refugee Coordinators in more than 50 countries who take action on some individual cases or issues, lobby their own governments for changes in laws and policies and work with other non-government organisations to promote the protection of the rights of asylum seekers, refugees, migrants and IDPs.

The staff at the International Secretariat in London and Geneva work towards influencing international policy and standard setting, as well as advocating for the effective implementation of international standards, policies and guidelines in a way that respects the human rights of asylum-seekers, refugees, migrants and IDPs.

Refugee Coordinators, the International Secretariat as well as UN offices in Geneva, New York and an EU office in Bruxelles work towards an overall strengthening of the international protection framework. This includes calling on states to share responsibility for protecting refugees.

Amnesty International does not represent individual asylum-seekers or refugees, but sometimes takes action in individual cases. If Amnesty International does not actively support a particular case it does not necessarily mean that the organisation believes that the person or persons concerned is not deserving of protection as a refugee. Asylum-seekers, lawyers, and decision-makers often use country information and analysis from AI reports during asylum procedures.